


Frightful

by Ignicula



Category: God Eater (Video Games), God Eater 3
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Background Relationships, M/M, Male Protag is the Aragami version of the Boogeyman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23492929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ignicula/pseuds/Ignicula
Summary: Aragami are creatures that constantly evolve in order to grow stronger and survive, devouring more and more until they eventually become the ultimate monsters. Survival strategies can include many different behaviors... which apparently include running away from a certain white-haired blue-eyed AGE.In other words: Keith observes as the local aragami learn that the approach of the Devil of the Chrysanthemum is bad news and decide that running away is more beneficial to survival than trying to fight.
Relationships: Hugo Pennywort/Male Protagonist
Comments: 7
Kudos: 59





	Frightful

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by a glitch I got against Ashwrought Barbarius, in which he entered the arena and immediately ran away. I hope you all enjoy.

The first time Keith saw it happen, he was actually a good distance away devouring a zygote for materials. He didn’t blame Amy for the late warning; their radar was at its best only when Luca was at the helm resonating with it and the program couldn’t function quite as well without his help. Nothing Amy did would change that at the moment, though Keith was working on something to upgrade the system in the near future.

In any case, here he was out in the field. The team for this mission was pretty strong, if he did say so himself. No, he wasn’t bragging; it was simply that both Neal and their resident Ace were present. He and Hugo were present as well, of course, but Keith was here because he wanted materials and Hugo was here as Luca’s emotional support. Neal was with him at the time, also devouring some aragami corpses. A lot of the time they ate good stuff that could be useful later, and no good AGE would pass up the opportunity to collect it. Hugo and Luca were a bit in the other direction, devouring some blast spiders they’d taken out.

The large type had come out of nowhere. It’d probably been dormant in the area when they’d arrived and been disturbed by the sounds of fighting, now that Keith thought about it. The aragami in question rounded the street corner right next to Luca and Hugo the second Amy called it in. 

It was a Fallen Barbarius, a rather easy kill for their group. Neal and Keith, of course, had immediately shield-dashed their way over to gain distance, but…

The second it appeared, Luca had already charged. The Aragami took one look at the white-haired ace and immediately turned tail and fled, not even trying to attack.

“Um… what?” Neal asked as they dropped out of the air.

Keith blinked, stunned. “Did it just…”

“Think you can get away?” Luca’s voice comes over the radio. It's probably not something the were particularly meant to hear, but they heard it all the same.

“Wait, Luca, it could be leading us into a trap!”

“Barbaruis aren’t that smart.” Whether they are or not is already too late to debate, Luca has just taken off at full speed springing after his prey. “I’ll catch it.”

“At least wait for us!” Hugo cries, leaping off after the bloodthirsty AGE. 

Keith and Neal exchanged looks. “I swear he’s a completely different person on the field.” Keith complains.

“Yeah. He’s right, though. Barbarius aren’t that smart. Besides, they’re easy kills. Even if it does lead us towards another one we should finish it off soon eno…”

Amy’s warning cuts through their conversation, as well as Luca’s cursing. “It turned around! Headed back towards you!”

When it rounds the corner, Keith thinks it’s the first time he’s ever seen pure fear on an Aragami’s face. It’s the only thing he sees of its face for a bit, too. Luca jumps out a window, clearly having taken a shortcut through the building rather than having gone around, and unleashes a devour attack straight over the thing’s head. The Barbarius spins around, swinging wildly in what is clearly panic, but it can’t hit Luca. The drill collides with Luca’s buckler in a flash of gold, and Luca charges in as it prepares the next blow, his twin blades in the form of a glaive.

Blow after blow is either dodged or blocked, and Luca manages to stay in a state of continuous burst. About halfway through, Keith remembers they’re supposed to be helping and unloads a barrage of bullets into the aragami’s body. Neal charges in, but by the time he gets there and Hugo finally rounds the corner, Barbarius’s core is already stabbed through by Luca’s glaive. The large-type aragami falls, skin already starting to become grey, and Luca begins devouring it as if nothing had happened. 

“That’s,” Hugo pants, “Our ace for you. No one got hurt, right?”

Luca’s head pops up from behind the aragami’s corpse. “I’m fine. Keith, Neal, are you two okay?”

“Not a scratch on me.” Keith replies.

“I’m fine too.” Neal agrees.

All in all, that day continues as normal, and the incident is forgotten as they return to the chrysanthemum, examining the materials they’d found and items they’d scavenged.

O

The next time it happens, Keith’s memory digs up the previous incident. He’s on the team again with Lulu and Claire. Luca’s more fidgety, nervous, and jumpy this time; normal behavior that surfaces whenever Hugo isn’t around. Even despite this, he’s still the Chrysanthemum’s ace and his performance in combat hasn’t dropped at all. 

This time, it’s a small swarm of Ogretails. They’re milling about minding their own business… unfortunately in the way of their path to the fight with a False Idol that has been blocking a supply route. That happens to mean that they’re also in  _ Luca’s  _ way.

“Multiple small type aragami ahead,” Amy warns them over the console, “be careful!”

“Ogretails are easy.” Luca says. 

“Considering we hunt ashborn for a living, I think we’ll be fine.” Lulu agreed. “Right?”

Claire nods, and Keith hefts his blade. “Even I can deal with those just fine.”

They advance, but no sooner do the Ogretails see Luca - Keith knows they’re looking at the Chrysanthemum’s ace because that’s the direction their heads turn when the group enters - than they turn tail and sprint in the opposite direction.

They’re befuddled, but they still can’t exactly let them go.

“Get back here!” Luca sounds strangely offended by their actions, charging after them with a shield dive. Then again, he always acts like that when their enemies try to run. This is why he’s called the Devil of the Hounds. 

Keith changes his God Arc to gun form and rains fire on the small-types, trying to cut them off. He normally wouldn’t waste oracle cells before the real fight like this but if he doesn’t he knows Luca will chase them to the ends of the earth to kill them and their mission will take that much longer.

To his surprise, though, some are actually willing to brave the bullets.

He watches with a slowly dying soul as they practically run screaming as Luca butchers them. This is like watching normal humans trying to get away from an ashborn. 

_...Luca is like the Aragami Boogeyman, isn’t he? _

Keith had always known that aragami were at least a little intelligent and had the capacity to evolve.

He  _ hadn’t  _ known they were capable of learning fear, specifically directed at a certain white-haired ace.

_ I guess you learn something new every day. _

O

The False Idol tries to run as soon as it sees Luca too. They agree to have Lulu lead the way after that.

O

Keith is, while not exactly surprised by the next incident, he’s not really expecting it either. This time it’s a Hannibal, and a strong one at that. It took a hit or two first, of course, but it didn’t take nearly the amount of damage it should have before it fled. He hears about it later from Zeke, who was with Luca, Hugo and Phym on that particular run. Apparently Luca ran it down with Phym hot on his heels excited for the fight.

...He swears to all that is holy that if Phym grows up acting like some normal aragami instead of a humanoid one it’s all Luca’s fault. 

On second thought, maybe it was because Luca was just like an aragami when he was on the field that she latched onto him instead of anyone else. Well, it’s not like he has any way to know besides asking Phym and no way does he plan to.

“...So another one died screaming, huh?” Keith asks. “Why does it feel like we’ve become the monsters instead of the Aragami?”

“Isn’t it a good thing though?” Zeke asks, seemingly way too excited for the scenario. “Even the aragami are scared of us!”

“They’re just scared of Luca.” Keith replied. “And not really. Every time I see Luca go in there it’s like letting a Vajra loose in a room full of helpless civilians. I get a  _ really  _ bad feeling doing it.”

“... _ Oh _ . Well, when you put it like that…” Zeke looks more than a little disturbed. Keith’s mission is accomplished. “They’re still our enemies, so it’s still a good thing… kind of. Why do they do that by the way?”

“Run away?” Keith asked. “Well, Oracle cells are constantly evolving and developing new attack patterns, abilities, and survival strategies. I guess they finally caught on that Luca is scary and started employing a flight reaction whenever he shows up.”

“...Luca’s kinda terrifying, isn’t he?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“True enough. I’m glad he’s a human and not an aragami.”

Keith sets his tablet down before he drops it, imagining having to fight something like that. It’s almost intimidating, but...

“...Just tell him he won’t get to hang around Hugo anymore and he’ll let us live.” 

“That is true.”

O

Okay, it was bad before, but with this?

Keith is drawing the goddamned line.

Normally he wouldn’t be out in this ash density, but they’re out fixing a beacon tower and the only person who can do that is Keith. The others have split up to handle guarding him. Lulu is dealing with a nemain, Neal ran off to kill a quadriga, Ein is clearing out the small types that dare to approach and Luca was asked to stay behind just in case. The other is standing around beneath him, jumpy as always with nothing to fight and Hugo not present. It looks like one of the bad days, if Keith is being honest. He’s glad they had him stay behind, he looks jittery enough for it to impact his fighting.

“You doing okay down there?” He calls from his perch on a platform by the maintenance panel of the beacon tower.

“I-I’m fine.” Luca calls. “How are repairs coming?”

He checks it over one last time. “Should be almost done. I’ll have to fix a few more wires then we can test it.”

Luca nods, fidgeting from foot to foot and looking around nervously.

_ “I’m done over here.”  _ Neal’s voice speaks over the comm.  _ “Heading back to the tower.” _

_ “Almost finished here too.” Lulu’s voice calls. “The damn thing ran away again. I’ll regroup with you shortly.” _

_ “I’ll stay on the lookout for more of these little guys. They don’t know when to quit.” _

Keith laughs. “We should send Luca over there when Neal gets back; give ‘em a good scare.” Luca shoots him a slightly betrayed look.

“Why do you all keep talking about me like I’m some kind of monster?”

_ “You kind of are one.”  _ Neal replies.

_ “Even the aragami are scared of you.”  _ Lulu ads in.  _ “That definitely says something.” _

“You guys are horrible.” Luca grouches. Keith just laughs.

Suddenly, Amy’s voice cuts into their conversation.  _ “It’s an emergency! Ashborn aragami rapidly closing in! It’s heading for Luca and Keith’s position! Arrival time in less than a minute!” _

_ “What?!”  _ It’s a pretty simultaneous reaction.

_ “I’m returning as fast as I can, but it’ll probably beat me there! Can you hold it off until we make it?” _

“I’ll handle it somehow.” Luca says. “Lulu? Ein?”

_ “The Quadriga’s down. I’m heading your way.” _

_ “They don’t stop coming!”  _ Ein curses.  _ “Sorry, I might take a minute!” _

“If it comes down to it, I’ll help.” Keith ads in. “Just…”

A Balmung leaps around the corner.

For a moment, Keith thinks they’re done for. Luca’s facing the wrong way, he isn’t armed, and Luca’s grip on his weapon is weakened with one hand raised up to the ear com. Luca turns to face the charging Aragami and Keith is terrified it’s too late, but…

The Balmung suddenly sits on the ground, skidding to a halt in front of Luca, scrambles as fast as it can to turn around, and flees from Luca with its tail between its legs. Just like that, it’s _gone_.

For a moment, he, Luca, and Amy are completely silent. The two present just stand there, staring.

Neal arrives to the scene shortly after to find them still standing like that. “Where’s the Aragami?”

“...Um…” Keith has a shaky smile on his face while he raises a ringer and points in the direction it fled. “It went that way.”

“...” Luca is still standing there, stunned silent. He looks pretty freaked out himself, but that’s probably from being about a half second from being bowled over by an ashborn Aragami than its sudden retreat.

_ “What’s the situation?” _

_ “...Ashborn Aragami retreating at full speed.”  _ Amy’s voice somehow sounds both relieved and horribly confused at the same time.  _ “It should fully leave the area in under a minute.” _

_ “Excuse me.”  _ Ein’s voice crackles over the radio.

“...It ran away.” Keith says, still coming to terms with this himself. “It took one look at Luca, turned around, and ran off.”

“...I give up.” Luca just sits down. 

Neal looks from Luca to the direction Keith pointed in complete and utter disbelief. “You’re joking.”

“I wish I was.” Keith replies.

_ “All signs of the ashborn have disappeared.” _

“Continuing operation.”

...He’ll just do his job. If there is a discussion about this, it will happen later, when they are on the ash crawler and not in a dangerous environment surrounded by Aragami…

And the one thing that seems to scare them.

O

A discussion does happen. Luca is too shocked to actually say anything for the majority of said discussion, but it does happen.

Luca’s title as the Devil of the Chrysanthemum has never been more solid.

O

The Zygote Drone is a work of pure genius on Keith’s part.

“What is this?” Lulu asks, eyeing the screen he’s looking through. “Where are these images coming from?”

He puffs up with pride, happy to explain. “I call this the Zygote-cam.”

“Don’t tell me you strapped a camera to a zygote!” She recoils.

“Nonono,” He waves his hands around. “I made a fake Zygote. I used materials from dead zygotes to make it and coated it with some of the oracle cells taken from them, so the other Aragami should think it’s one of them. With this, we can record the movements of the local Aragami without risking our lives on the field!”

“Really?” She looks impressed. “That’s amazing! How are you controlling it?”

“It’s a bit strange,” he replied, “But I have it hooked up to this joystick here.” He holds up the controller in his hands. “The camera is what it sees, which lets me get a good look at the area.”

“Can you see the others on their mission?” Lulu asks. “Who got sent out on that again?”

“Just Luca. He’s getting one of the elite certifications from Gleipnir, so they’re having him kill a certain number of small-types inside of a specific time limit.”

“Huh, interesting.” She comments. “So what are we observing for now?”

“There’s a dormant large-type in the area.” He replies. “We’ve gotten plenty of data from combat and seen them when they sleep, but we haven’t been able to obscure their normal daily activities until now.” He flies the drone over several buildings, and it comes into view.

“Is that it?” Lulu asks. “A Sariel, right?”

“Yeah.” He nods, watching the thing floating about. “What is it even doing?”

“Give me the controls.” Lulu says, a gleam in her eyes.

“Why?”

“I want to get a good look at it.”

“Wait, getting closer could be dangerous, Aragami are known to eat each other!” But it’s too late, Lulu has already grabbed the joystick and jerked it forwards a little too hard.

The Zygote-cam instantly shoots forwards and rams straight into the Sariel.

It stops, looks at the bobbing Zygote-cam for exactly two seconds, and then screams in rage.

“What did I tell you?!” Keith cries. He jerks the joystick and sends the Zygote-cam flying as far as he can send it. “I told you it’d be pissed!”

He weaves the zygote through alleys, past buildings, up and down streets, and between old abandoned cars on the roadside before he finally loses the sariel, sighing in relief. The sound, however, reveals the roars of several small-types nearby.

“What’s that about?” Keith asks.

“Hmm… Maybe it’s the exam?” Lulu asks. 

“I don’t think we went that far though.” Keith comments. “Let’s get a better look.”

He navigates the Zygote down a side street just in time for Luca to lunge by, golden oracle-cell blood flying as a blast spider is carved horizontally in two. Luca’s glaive reverts to its normal twin-blade form, and his eyes lock onto them.

His eyes, yellow with burst, almost look like they’re glowing  _ red _ . His visage is terrifying in that light, and he’s glowing gold and hell if that’s not the most terrifying thing Keith has ever seen in his life. He’d take a Balmung over that any day  _ thank you very much. _

“Holy… Make it run, get the Zygote out of there, maybe when it runs… Wait that’s normal now!” Lulu curses.

“Nonononono Don’t DO IT LUCA PLEASE NO!” Keith cries, trying to fly the Zygote out of reach.

It’s immediately torn to pieces by a beam of light and it hardly takes any kind of genius to figure out what just happened. Keith can already see that devil standing there behind the remains of a robotic Zygote, God Arc in its gun form, looking terrifying yet so horribly confused all at the same time.

“...I feel like we needed a speaker built into that thing.” Lulu says, sounding shaken.

“...Yeah.”

“Should we make Luca help you make a new one when he gets back?”

“...Yeah.”

O

When Luca gets back, he is so beyond confused that they don’t even bother.

O

In the end, all Keith has learned is that Aragami are, in fact, capable of fear. 

And the thing that even Aragami fear… he is a truly frightful person indeed.

Yet somehow, watching as said terror falls asleep on Hugo’s shoulder after a long day of certification missions, he can’t at all see the terrifying AGE that scared even Aragami. Keith just shakes his head, completely bewildered by the entire scenario.

“I swear… never change, Luca. Never change.”

**Author's Note:**

> The poor guy is so, so confused. Keith and Lulu might be a little traumatized.


End file.
